Mendeln funions - build

That is the point, whit out Mendeln the build would even scrap A tier. Minions need base damage buff and Mendeln should proc a % of that base damage, like x800%, plus scaled up by the minion multipliers.

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Blizzard have 2 options:

1- increase % damage minions inherent from weapon (which i dont like, because players will be crying about how good necro can lvl up 1-60).

2- Fix the problem with paragon, giving minion glyphs (warrior and mages) gain multiplicative damage, just like Golem Glyph. (Which i prefer).

Anyway, im still lvling up (in campaign), because i like appreciate new things around story/quests for some imersive experience (my job is killing me, so i started saturday, include original campaign).

Im having a very positive experience so far lvling up in expert mode while questing (after conclude original campaign, pre-requisite, i will switch to penitent).

Elite mobs/Bosses dont die with a single hit, using crap gear. You actually need to upgrade stuffs, and can see each stage of the fight, instead the joke was before.

Im pretty surprised how they ballanced the lvl up experience (necro minion perspective).

I will do my final review, when i reach high end game.

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Do that for warrior and mage nodes in Cult Leader board too. I feel like anything minion damage related could be multiplicative.

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Interesting thoughts from Macro, do you guys agree or disagree?

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I dont really agree with wanting more control, I think its just a downside of a summoner. If they want to make WoW raids for d4… sure then summoner is bad. But I don’t want to play wow, I was a hardcore raider for many years a long time ago and don’t want that content.

As far as pushing pits as “hard content” you are competing against other summoners so complaining that your minions are attacking the wrong target… well thats the case for everyone. There are many cases where you as the summoner get to run about avoiding mechanics not needing to DPS, while other classes have zero dps time during these windows. So I see it as swings and roundabouts.

Its just a case of making sure the positives are not out weighed by the negatives

Minions being while leveling I just completely disagree, sure they can die… but all you have to do is get more armour/res and this stops. Also where my skeletons died in the first fields in penitent at level 1, I survived… and resummoned and by the time I was level 10 or so this had almost stopped.

I actually agree a lot with what mac is saying. It’s the same gripes almost all of us have had in one way or another. We really started to feel how bad it was last season with the masses and Andy when we just have to hope and pray our cds work.

I would actually like to see raise skeleton turned into command skeleton and have it be a core skill. Let the command give +10% attack speed and 20% healing at base ranks and 5% each for additional. Minions get 50% movement speed at second tier. Third could be minions get 30x damage at tier 3.

The movement speed is there because warriors and golems have horrible engagement delays. Having them move faster reduces that penalty.

Edit: I would also like to see the act of raising skeletons turned into a passive ability and have the player spawn with a full compliment of minions on death. It’s utterly ridiculous that if you do not run army, you could literally be unable to play of you die.

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Hard disagree…

His whole concept of summoner looks more like D3 than D2 (and im not even talking about target mechanic).

Personally, i never liked the necro minion concept of D3, which dont even feel summons.

If people need so much a target feature, implement it without change all other things…

I survived the era (D2) where you needed to run Maggot Lair, killing those beetles, as summoner (until i get tired and used a bow or a teleport staff/enigma lol).

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If blizzard hadn’t created multiple times where you literally need to command your minions to attack a specific thing, then I would agree it’s not needed. I put a few thousand hours as well into the original (non-remastered) d2 and mechanics did not exist where you can’t win without attacking a specific thing to engage the environment.

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Maybe it would be just enough if they would better the AI just to focus on fighting Bosses, than Elites and Trash Mobs - fighting walls at last or not at all. :smiley: Or focus onto what the player targets for with Curses and active skills like Blight.

I agree - as long, as the base damage of every Minion is not good enough, we do need the Mendeln power ouput for now to be able to do Pit T65+. That is not good, but right now, it is as it is.

Yeah, Spiritborn using all broken mechanics right now is easy 10000x the other classes! :crazy_face:

But you have to realize this in not the slow and methodical D2 combat. It’s fast, more fluid. I disagree with the no damage no cc on minions part, but the auto summoning would be usefull, they could still need corpses. It would be like the RoSS effect, but with out RoSS. Summoning the Priest could still be manual, and targeting a mob instead of a corpse, when casting raise skeleton, would force your skeletons to attack that target.

The targeting was a realy good concept. And just because they were comeing out of the ground, instead of a corpse, doesn’t change anything. Druids pull their pets out of thin air, D3 skelys atleast crawled out from underground.

As I said it doesn’t have to change everything. To tackle the cc summoning the Priest could make minions unstopable for a few seconds. They don’t need to be immortal, because I feel it would come with a big damage nerf to compensate.

Me too and as you see even D2 had a solution to solve the problem in endgame. Every skills downside can be solved in endgame, just not the minions? And it’s fine? That is not a good attitude.

this, and this is why i never bought the necro in D3, plus i wasn’t a huge D3 fan other then right after reapers of souls launch when I made a barb summoner with the IK set XD.

The best summoner in D3 was the witch doctor hands down, and guess what… no control. There was huge moments of frustration (like with any summoner build) but the positives out weighed them, so it my go-to build each season more or less.

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Also no corpses to rely on and when you had enough CDR in endgame you basicly spammed your dogs and Garg on top of the enemy you wanted them to kill. So there was controll, but not many thought about this solution.

I wonder if the targeting issue could be solved with a few small AI improvements

  1. If the target is invulnerable, find a different target.
  2. Minions get target priorities bosses/elites first, then normals

Yeah corpses or not, i dont really care, but I would say corpses have a meaningful impactin d4 and I think that should stay. From being near, to consuming to generating them, all of these aspects give the necro power, I would go so far as to say I would like to see more spells especially defensive ones like barrier gen being related to corpses.

I think limited control like relocating your golem/skeletons I can live with, but the idea that a minion class can only be good with an “attack this specific target” is untrue.
I never had that control in PoE with my agony crawler build (single minion), D2/D2R or even D3. I think this is just Macro thinking he likes minions while being the kind of player who actually much prefers optimization and control over everything else, so when he loses that the frustration is huge. That unfortunately is minion game play, but it has its upsides too like damaging enemies while you are staying safe.

If the AI would be improved further to prioritize targets, we would be fine the way it is now, I think with only controlling the Golem directly.

Does not necessary have to be like in LE.

The option could still be there. You could ingnore it or use it if you want, totaly up to the player. I rather have options than not haveing any at all.

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That would probably be the best way to satisfy all Summoners.

The problem is more if the game ends up being balanced around needing that button.

I would prefer to see a tele-stomp type solution like in D2, then the minions are still independent.

They just give us a command button, how would that change balance?

And if we have a tele stomp option(old archaic and cluncky mechanic) couldn’t that change the balance? It changes the balance more than a command button.

Condemn the option outright, god forbid the game could evolve.

It’s just an option. Nothing inherently wrong will happen. Don’t be that type if old person who fears every bit of change is the end of the world.

All I’m saying is I rather try it in a PTR or even a whole season, and eat my words if it turns out to be a bad feature, than not even giveing it a chance.

Thats why i said they can implement a target mechanic, just do not change all other things Macro video suggest… It will ruin core fantasy of the class.

This not affect me so much, since i can at least use active Golem skill to some control.

While i didnt test the Raid yeat, i can see the problem with that content, but from what i watch in videos, the problem is pretty much same with Andariel totem (which i can partially solve with Golem).

Anyway, i dont think this will happens, and i think we all agree that the damage from minions need to be tunned up (and there are plent of good suggestions in this topic).